"I uh...I get off the cart."

>'Are you -SURE- you want to cast that?'
>'fuck it, whats the worst that can happen'

the DM then threw out his notes and we had to fight an elder god.

we did not win

Because you are not allowing them to rest and cantrips may be worse than crossbow

What is wrong with getting off the cart?

>swallowed whole first round
Why the hell would that happen? If I were a dragon, and the party split up where some are joining me and some are fighting me, I'd totally eat the non-loyal ones... first.

Well, I did. My level 16 Warblade just challenged an epic-level (22) paladin to an honorable one-on-one duel to the death.

I mean, as for why a Lawful Good knight (My character) and another LG paladin would be duelling to the death... the PC party involves some monster races and barely any humans, and this paladin is part of a pro-human faction that hates monsters. So after the paladin skewered one of our party members and was going to kill them, my character caused a big delay, challenging them to a duel under the perspective that, well, they're both lawful and good and righteous, but the only reason they're fighting at all is due to a matter of perspective and political views. So whoever's right would obviously triumph in the duel.

Then we came up with a neutral place to duel, and a time- Which is AFTER the rest of the party is all healed up.

Truth is, my character might be lawful... But swore an oath of fealty to a different PC- one who's nonhuman. So after the battle, when my warblade inevitably dies or surrenders, everyone else is going to ambush the paladin.

Might besmirch her honor, but pragmatism is more important than honor.

I'dn't've written it like that.

"i feed that raptor'

"guys how fast CAN a trex run anyway?"

"I'm going to steal the eggs, who's going to stop me?"

"We should go right"

Last words of my 4 characters in a Jurassic park like TTRPG

The entireparty made one collective bad decision;

Leaving my character alone on the shop

>Skypirates
>am a sorc who likes to get up close and dangerous
>also a necromancer
>party thinks i'm a pretty good guy
>Full blown evil
>we take a pretty big ship
>i takeover a part of the galley and turn it into a 'fridge'
>it's actually a morgue
>i'm building zombies and storing them in the hull

ended up bombing a town with them when the captain found them. That's when the flesh golem woke up.

Then the ship had a new captain.

>Have you played with anyone who've made terrible decisions?
Yeah Me. I keep coming back onto Veeky Forums.

>"I cast detect evil on the Sir Badd the Paladin"
>"yup, he's evil, evil as they come"
>'But, waaa?"
>Mfw i've actually been a blackguard the entire time and have had a prepared action to murder the closest party member if they detect my evil.

It's in a monogamous relationship with a female cart, and has 3 cartlets with her. You just made the cart unfaithful to its wife, and a terrible role model to its carlets.

Never get off the cart.

>friendly duel to the death

Why can't players just do regular duels. I don't know, maybe first blood, or go down to the half-health mark, or use nonlethal damage or something.

First off, prepared actions don't work like that. They function between 'after your turn ends and before your next turn begins'. You can't have a longstanding prepared action unless it's a Contingency spell or whatever.

Second off, how would you know if other people detected your evil? Yeah, it has Verbal and Somatic components, but to figure out what spell it is would be a DC 16 Spellcraft Check... and I doubt a paladin has much Spellcraft, if they've even sunk any points into it.

Still not any more retarded than the actions of the 'protagonists' of Jurassic Park 2.

Basically told the gm if i detected the spell, i will initiate combat, which will be a surprise round most likely, and kill the closest party member first. Also the Gm thought the plan was funny, so rule of cool yo.

And i was a blackguard, a int cha build at that. yes i did have that much spell craft.

Honestly? Because we're trying to kill this bitch anyway. Nonlethal damage would be a joke, while dealing real damage would force the pally to take real damage. If I win, my character's too lawful to behead the bitch. And if I lose, the cleric or druid can revive me anyway. And if we didn't make it to the death, then attacking her after I've lost would also be too dishonorable. (and I'd die anyway) I mean, it's not as if my character would lose powers if they changed alignment, but dat roleplaying.

I think I have a good chance, despite the level suppression- Got some real nasty maneuvers in there- to at least weaken her. Especially since the bitch has an artifact sword that negates magical healing... and Iron Heart Endurance isn't magical.

Plus, I've got Unluck stuffed into a spellstorage dagger. That with Emerald Razor is definitely going to be some real fuckery, especially since our wizard focuses on divination and the spell has a save that's basically on the moon.

The main problem with her is that with that stupid sword, she challenges us, injures us badly, and then leaves when she's hurt, forcing us to heal up the old vanilla way. She doesn't fall because her actions aren't evil- it's not as if she's poisoning us or sneaking up in the night. This way, in an arena, she can't run away without Falling.

Also maybe gonna challenge the paladin to go without magic- have our wizard cast an antimagic field over the area so that both of us can't use magic powers or items. Again, maneuvers usually aren't supernatural abilities.

Yeah, good point. I feel like an idiot about that second point, now that I recall that you can't be a paladin and evil at the same time.

>i will initiate combat, which will be a surprise round most likely
>durrr I get the surprise round because I started the fight

This is the worst meme in the universe.

Not just because i started the fight, a lot of other factors like them trusting me an being off guard, them being drunk, the cleric being dex 6.

It's not a meme bro, it's the narrative. yesh.

That is how the surprise round fucking works, dipshit.

One of my party members went to scam soldiers (while being lvl 1 mind you) for several hours and then started taunting them afterwards. Needless to say he lost his arm and whatever little respect we had for him. Worst thing is that that's not the worse thing he's done.

Me

>last night
>in creepy house
>open chest
>hand sticks to it
>mimic takes a few bites from me
>possessed armor starts to grapple
>I pick up the chest
>throw it out the window
>fall with it
>roll 1 on dex save
>get bit on the way down
>take fall damage
>fall unconscious

Literally, he never uses his spells when he should to be combat effective OR out-of-combat effective, like he'll shut down combat for a whole minute trying to decide if he'll even cast a spell and weighing cost benefits of using a single spells when he hasn't used at all but acting like it's life or death to use just one spell. Eventually, he already chooses to use the crossbow, which would be fine... if he didn't also try to run into frontline combat with it then ask he's getting hit with AoOs and nearly dying every combat section.

And as for getting rests, if we could get some fucking rests, we fucking would because my inquisitor and the group oracle have to cover for the arcanist not being a fucking spellcaster at this point and half the time, we're at zero spells except for cantrips while this asshole walks around with scrolls of burning hands and shit out the ass that he never uses. If you're an spellcaster, you only need a rest when you actually use your fucking spells, faggot, and this person doesn't. Instead, he nearly gets himself killed making stupid decisions that make no sense IC-wise (there's a point where average WIS and 16+ INT tells you not to make suicidal charges into frontline battle that require the inquisitor, swashbuckler, and fight to run in to save you only to get smashed for it) or OOC-wise. Stay back, use your spells or your crossbow, and stop fucking up every plan we put together so that enemies will be funneled into a burning hands situation just for you.

>break into evil sorcerer's chamber
>interrupt him mid ritual
>manage to kill him
>PC wizard picks up dropped spellbook, looks over ritual lines on the floor
I roll to finish the ritual
>mfw

I think the cart is the parties transport.

I've always found as a GM, That Guys love destroying, selling or abandoning with no reason.

Is there any way to watch Harmonquest for free?

>implying that's wrong

Yes. One of the kiss sites has it.

Because it was going along a Temple of Doom style track over a decent sized drop at the time.

>I charge the army regiment of 12 soldiers
"Are you sure? You're a rogue."
>Yeah, someone has to do it

I killed him next round

I think you mean that's how the initiative roll works

>Have you played with anyone who've made terrible decisions?

>in dungeon
>party low on health
>wizard opens door because why not
>full of big guys
>party prepares for combat, rolls for initiative
>my turn, I close the doors and lock them

Really, opening the door was the mistake, but resigning yourself to fighting everything is certainly a bigger mistake.

>whom'st

You only get a surprise round if your target was unaware of your presence. If you are at a royal dinner and you decide to attack the king with a fork you don't get six seconds of uninterupted movement before anyone responds.

>eating you
>not telling you this is a chance to prove your loyalty and ordering you to kill your friends
shit dragon desu
They clearly don't trust you if they're casting detect evil on you, and even if they did they probably don't after the spell completes.

Playing 5e in the underdark.
Sneaking through a duergar encampment by climbing along the cliffside beneath them. One duergar begins peeing over the side, DM's GF turns into a spider and bites the duergar to get rid of him. duergar strikes the spider to push it away. Spider falls down and our monk catches it. If it wasn't the DM's GF I am pretty sure that the duergar would've hit them and kicked her out of polymorph. Leaving us to deal with a full fucking encampment while we were dangling off the side of a cliff.
Same player
Trekking through a mountain pass. Eventually be surrounded by Wyverns who are pissed that we are in their territory. We agree to go somewhere else with the Wyverns guiding us. The bard in the party goes invisible and attempts to steal a Wyvern egg to give to our sorcerer that she cast a spell on in the previous session, in an attempt to make up for stealing her autonomy. Wyvers find out that an egg is missing and react appropriately, circling the rest of our group and shouting that they will kill us if the egg isn't returned. does the bard return the egg knowing that she may cause a TPK? Nope, tries for 2 more rounds to sneak away and only puts the egg back when she herself cannot leave.

>Dragon
>Offers local adventuring party chance to work for me
>One person comes forward and kneels, others do not
>Others from the party would probably try to kill the member who just joined me, so I better swallow'em before they can get the chance.
>Let the ex member out of my stomach after wiping out the party.
>First assignment is to loot the dead party
>Next assignment is belly rub

And that is how you spruce it up with vore.

The worst decision set I've ever, ever seen was from one 3.0 DnD rookie I played with once.

>Traveling from point A to point B
>Low level, 1 or 2 I think.
>Can't teleport or do anything much to speed up, so just walking.
>Camp for the night
>Divide up watches.
>Rookie is playing a half-orc fighter
>Is on watch.
>Succeeds on a listen check, knows something is lurking in the brush but not what or how many.
>I go off to investigate it!
>I make exaggerated snoring sounds to try to hint to him.
>GM gives me a dirty look, but then asks the new guy "are you sure you want to do that?"
>To his credit, he realizes he's being tossed a hint
>To his shame, after about 15 seconds of agonized thinking, he says
>You're right, if I go in in my armor, they'll hear me coming. I take off my chainmail and THEN go looking for them.

And thus we all died.

Sounds like a real life half orc.

Good role play, bad game play.

The group I DM for has a Druid of the land (5e). She constantly decides to run into melee to cast spells at close range for MAXIMUM DAMAGE, then gets nuked to death by angry barbarians

The kicker? She's the only one in the party with healing spells

The double kicker? She takes levels in monk to try to solve the problem

>level 16 Warblade just challenged an epic-level (22) paladin
All told, user, the advantage here lay with you.
The paladin's strongest abilities will not work on you, as you are good, and your maneuvers are not based on alignment quibbles.
His only real advantage is BAB and hp, gear being something you can't really count on. If you are a powerhouse, or went far into Ironheart or *something* Tiger disciplines, you can put him down first, or at least call for honorable surrender.

See >who have

Exactly, thats why in a surprise round, you only get a standard action.
And yes, getting the jump on someone when they are not prepared for conflict constitutes a surprise round. Maybe you need to read the book a little more, with your interpretation that clearly favors the gm over the players..

He actually did have a 10 int IC. And I suppose you could be right if this was him roleyplaying as a stupid character, but he really did just choke. Guy got better, although he was never a great player. Still, when we reset that adventure, he saved all our lives smashing a trio of giant spiders with the spiked chain.

>knowing the levels of a NPC

Badwrongfun

Paul F. Tompkins or John Hodgman.
Honourable mention to Steve Agee.

My DND group is all hardcore TG gamers except for one guy. We all have ages of experience in wargames of all kinds and as a result, in DND we end up fighting waaaaay above our encounter level to keep it from being trivial. By the way, new age DND makes the player characters too powerful and too durable. This isn't Exalted. I digress...

This guy is great at roleplay and cool to have around and adds depth and flavor to games, but in combat he is just tactically retarded.

To stop commander-syndrome we have a moratorium on telling other players what to do with their turn. But sometimes, this guy just doesn't make any sense when he acts. I've seen improvement over the 15 years we've played together but he still does things that just aren't logical.

He likes playing casters but positions terribly, often moving in range of enemies and/or away from defending allies, sub-optimally targets spells, uses ineffective or sometimes even counterproductive spells, and numerous other basic wargaming mistakes that just make me cringe.

I don't know what to do about him, honestly. It's been 15 years he isn't going to ever get better than he is right now.

>new age DND makes the player characters too powerful and too durable. This isn't Exalted.
That's because Basic and 2e were not about fighting foes, but getting the loot and getting away, whereas later D&D embraced a heroic narrative.
As for your player, accept that some people just can't into sensible tactics, they just don't seem to have a mind that can turn the minutae of a chaotic situation into something simple and streamlined.
Have you asked him what prompts these decisions? I have noticed, in my own group, that they are often prompted by trying to do the least offensive or least "wrong" thing possible, a futile exercise at the least.

Oh yeah if I was busy casting a spell/watching my friend cast a spell while thinking we were all on the same team I totally wouldn't get caught off guard by the person next to me attacking

You're not gonna cast Detect Evil/Alignment on your ""trusted"" party member unless there's some grounds for suspicion.
Either way, a single action isn't going to murder a PC either way.

Detect Evil is a 60ft cone anyway, and lasts up to 10 minutes at level 1. It seems a rather stupid thing to risk. Especially if the cleric wants to play Detect Evil Lighthouse and spin in a circle

...

>sneaking through a possibly hostile castle, low on spell slots, health and having to deal with environmental hazards
>accidentally a statue of a god, causing it to bleed and attract sharks (the whole place was at the bottom of the fucking ocean)
>the party spends the entire time then on thinking of a valid excuse as to how the statue was damaged and how it wasn't their fault
>find the monarch of the castle deep underwater, and convince her to follow us to a dry spot to converse
>we pass the bloody remains of the statue on the way up
>she demands to know what the fuck happened to the statue
>party face starts to smooth talk
>gets cut off by the fucking druid (who broke the statue by ramming it as a whale)
>druid immediately admits guilt and takes full responsibility
>the queen looks at the druid with lightning crackling across her eyes
>the queen forgives the druid; turns out she appreciated the nobility of the act and the fact we didn't try to hide it from her
Honestly, I thought I_ may have killed the entire party with that one.

You still need to concentrate for an entire round to pick up auras.
I have a pc in a game currently that is under an epic level evil curse, and no one has tried to use any kind of detect on me other than detect magic.

>pragmatism is more important than honor.

Smh

>that feel when you will never cook a pot of stew over a campfire and share it with a dragon
>that feel when you will never have a dragon rub its head and snout against your face in appreciation after the meal, giving you gentle licks
>that feel when you will never spend the night gently rubbing a dragon's belly after it curls up around you and uses you as a bodypillow while it rests
>that feel when you will never wake up to the dragon's snout pushed up against your face, it breathing softly while it rests, the light glinting off its scales dazzling you
>that feel when you will never listen to it make strange unintelligible sounds in response to you gently rubbing its snout while it sleeps
Life is suffering.

Anyone is a singular indefinite pronoun. "who have" is incorrect.

DM was raging because he didn't want the party to fight the dragon

the one in OP's pic

I haven't seen the show but I hate Paul F Thompkins and I love Jeff Davis so that's my guess

This is some top tier taste.

This is what happens when you get too caught up in the rules, and not the fucking story you're actually supposed to be interpreting.
'A' for effort though.

>player doesn't want to stay on the railroad
>terrible decisions
you suck at DM

So he took it out on the only one smart enough to at least humour the giant fire-breathing magical lizard. Nice moves DM. Keep it up.

>Fantasy Flight Star Wars one-shot
>time to build characters
>this one guy wants to build a droid
>a surgical one
>all his physical stats are garbage
>"are you sure you want to be a noncombat character? They're really specialized and you might not get to do much"
>says sure, he's fine with it
>rest of the party makes regular characters like pilots, etc
>I make a combat monster bodyguard
>We get into a lot of fighting
>25% of fights are started by surgery droid who can't do jack shit in a fight
>he gets mad about it and throws a goddamn tantrum when I tell him that he should have tried something different if he was having such a bad time.
It's like he expects the DM to give him stuff to do instead of actually resolving things himself. He constantly tries to be face/noncombat characters but he's a terrible roleplayer.
Argh

>anti-magic
make sure that shit works on divine magic, dude

>If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin.
This actually brings up an interesting question. It could be interpreted that if you are unaware that someone is your opponent, they might get a surprise round.
Just to let you know, though.
>If you are able to take only a standard action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of up to double your speed) and you cannot draw a weapon unless you possess the Quick Draw feat.
Hey, some dudes were arguing about how surprise rounds work and I thought I'd contribute with the actual rules. If you or your DM wants to house-rule it differently I have no issue with that.

Fuuuuck. This one guy always makes awful decisions.

He chased the liche into an obvious trap with the whole party telling him what a bad idea it was and spending their own actions to try and prevent it. He got hit with a readied Cone of cold as he came into view and bitched endlessly that the DM killed him unfairly.

Running a oneshot when he tried to sell his "golden ticket" onto the floating sky island. Instead of letting him sell it and giving him a lv 5 aristocrat to play, I railroaded him into the flying palanquins.

Another oneshot. Instead of accomplishing the mission he decided to let them close the mine doors and just wait out the timeframe of the mission, declare the mine lost and go back on their way.

He flubbed his deceive check with the commissar who executed him on the spot. He was a little pissed about that one too and it pretty much wasted all of our time for the session.

I've spoken to him and I think he is peturbed by his own behavior in games. It's never made sense why he goes out of his way to be disruptive and avoid adventure in RPG's. He's an accountant at his dayjob, you'd think he wanted to do something fun instead of dither away 4 hours of everyone's time by ignoring the plot hook.

It's not even a long term campaign where you get more flexibility in what you do. It's oneshots with a limited budget to get shit done.

Season 2 when?

Player 1: I call over the tavern wench for more ale.
>She saunters over sexily with a platter in her outstretched hand. When she gets within arms reach of you she drops the plate and is actually holding a poisoned dagger! You weren't aware she was an assassin, so she gets a surprise round. What's your flat-footed AC?

Player 2: I ask the shopkeeper if there's any way he can reduce the price any more.
>He smiles and says there's one thing he can do for you. He reaches under the counter and pulls out a crossbow! You weren't aware that he was going to attack you, so he gets a surprise round.

Yeah you're right, this method that you're suggesting is much more fair to the players.

As a GM I'd at least allow a free sense motive check or do a hidden roll against the players Passive Insight for both those examples before giving the NPC in question a surprise round.

That's more than reasonable, and really should be expected. I was mostly trying to point out that his interpretation favours the attacker, not solely the players.

According to the SRD, surprise rounds only happen if you're not aware of your enemy and they're aware of you.

If they're quickly drawing a knife to try and shank you, then they might get a circumstance bonus on their initiative, but since you're aware of them and watch them reach for a weapon that isn't worth a surprise round.

At least, that's how I'd run it.

I agree. Sarcasm doesn't come through well with text.

Some DMs abuse the shit out of surprise rounds. I don't get it.

>WoD
>Players are regular humans
>Get captured and held hostage by a pack of werewolves for reasons
>Escape and head to harbour
>Werewolves in hot pursuit
>Party steal boat and are frantically paddling to safety
>Werewolves are on shore and can't pursue, party have escaped
>PC FUCKING JUMPS OVERBOARD
>Ask him what the fuck he thinks he's doing
>He's going to punch the alpha werewolf
>With his bare fist
>After jumping out the boat
>PC makes it to sure and punches the alpha
>It predictably does fuck all
>Alpha promptly rips both his arms out their sockets
>Party decide to carry on paddling to safety and leave him to his fate
>Ask him why on earth he did such a stupid thing
>"They insulted my honour, user!"
>The PCs were all playing themselves

To this day I'm still mad.

That's weird, we always keep our carts. Or we would if the DM hadn't taken them from us on five different occasions.

One time I played Rifts.

>room completely filled with skeletons
>apparently dead, but strangely preserved
>Mage casts detect magic
>Also you detect an aura of necromancy.
>paladin player decided to move into the middle of the pile to "pray for them"
>surprised absolutely no one besides the paladin, the skellies get up and attack
>wizard then decided to just throw a fireball in the middle, killing the paladin and everything else in the room

>Not immediately dispelling the shit out of that aura
Shit mage.

I once built an amazing countermage with a Abjurer 1/Fighter 5 and Abjurant Champion. I could ready a swift-cast dispel magic every single round, basically. Especially once I got Versatile Spellcaster, Elven Spell Lore, and a ring of wizardry III. And once I maxed out Abjurant Champion, I had a caster level equal to my BAB./spoiler]